Daily Archives: May 23, 2008

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I’m one of those people who gets bored rather easily. Let me clarify : I have a tendency to become rather bored if I’m not constantly re-inventing myself, trying new things, moving outside of the little comfort zone I am forever building and tearing down, like the tides on the sands of humanity, the reflection of the impermanence of all that is around us…

Woah…sorry kids…

Anyway, around the holidays I got all crafty-sewish-curious, and began to try to do things with needle and thread, very new waters for the Shellyfish. I even found myself ogling sewing machines on-line. Yeah, because that’s something cool people do, you just didn’t know it (neither did I, I must confess…).

My monster Mother-In-Law gave me her old machine in March. She told me straight up it wasn’t capable of much anymore, but would be a great way to see what that sewing thing was all about. I loved it, like a 16 year-old loves their first car, despite the lack of power-steering or breaks, or radio, or working heat, and the rusted-out holes which give it a cute Flintsones-esque feel…

My super-cute mom watched me try to parallel-park without a rear-view mirror so to speak with the old machine whilst visiting last month, and in a moment of pure benevolence and motherly-love, bought me the most amazing gift EVER (except for that Fender Avalon Acoustic when I was 14 which was frankly just freaking cool as hell).

With this here little “beginner” machine (it’s the most basic machine Singer has, and I’ll probably never need anything else), I have been (in my copious free time) having a blast! While I may not be able to completely escape the Capitalist Machine (shiver), if I can do it myself, I will.

I have managed to hem some pants (rather than paying 15E at the tailor’s down the street), and some other not very sexy things, but look at all this:

No, I didn’t sew the couch, but I did make some new throw-pillow covers all by myself! I rule! Okay, most seasoned stitchers could tell you it’s probably pretty easy, even without a pattern, but for me, damn, it was like cutting my first tooth! I just set the fabrics next to one another and did what I thought looked good.

And this little pencil-or-whatever-you-want case is for my good friend’s birthday. The Guppy calls her Tata Frog, and it is so decorated! If you recall, the Easter Bunny brought lots of these little cute felt critters, which came from one of the best little books ever, aptly named The Cute Book by Aranzi Aronzo. Holy freaking cute, Batman. I love this book which has got that whole tiny-Japanese-cute thing going on, and has really easy patterns to make little felt critters. I got the idea of adding the little froggie here from that book. Tata Frog is, like me, a teacher of languages, so she of course needs 1) little bags for pencils & red pens; 2) comic relief on the job. I’ve made some other things, but I don’t want to blow you all away with my amazing skills (note irony) , so I’ll reserve further show-and-telling for another day…